More drunks will be taken into custody and Indigenous people who visit Darwin from remote communities will be stranded, after the Government axes funding for the Larrakia Nation night patrol and return to country programs.

Corrections Minister John Elferink said the cuts, announced in the Government's mini-budget on Tuesday, were about sending a message to problem drinkers they can not come to Darwin for services that support their habit.

The Larrakia Nation first response patrol and night patrol takes over 5000 drunks off the streets and to sobering up shelters each year - people who will now be dealt with by the police.

The return to country program sends 4600 people a year back to remote communities on one-way tickets, which clients pay back incrementally.

Mr Elferink said the program was effectively a tax-payer funded travel service for itinerants who come to Darwin to "get on the turps".

"We provide these services and people take advantage of them and they take advantage in their thousands," he said.

"If you come to Darwin we have an expectation you will behave in a certain way...or you'll be charged with appropriate criminal offences or alternatively you'll be taken into custody."

Larrakia Nation CEO Ilana Eldridge hit back at the Minister this afternoon, saying she was appalled at his misrepresentation of the facts.

She said Aboriginal people travelled into Darwin from remote communities for a range of services they are entitled to, health and hospital care being a major one.

"For the Minister to suggest that everyone who comes to Darwin is only coming here to get drunk, I'm just appalled anyone could make such a disgusting suggestion," she said.

"The impact will be people will still come to Darwin, because they have to, and then they will be stranded here."

She said cutting the night patrol and shifting the burden to police would not deter problem drinkers, and that their condition should be viewed as a medical and social affliction rather than matter of crime.

NT Police Association president Vince Kelly said the change will overload police and the prison system.

"What I worry about is it may lead to an increase to people in police custody who are intoxicated and drunk and at the very lowest point of their health, and we've seen exactly what tragic outcomes can come when that occurs," Mr Kelly said.

Mr Elferink rejected the suggestion more Aboriginal people would end up in NT prisons and in custody.

"Once people from remote communities start to realise these services they have relied on in our major centres are not here they will be less inclined to come," he told Adam Steer on 105.7 ABC Breakfast.

He linked the increase in drunks apprehended in the Northern Territory to the introduction of the Larrakia services, saying in 2001 the number of drunks apprehended was 12,000 and in 2008-09 it was 35,000.

But North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency advocacy manager Jared Sharp said Mr Elferink was ignoring the real drivers for people coming to major centres, including the intervention, which removed alcohol from remote communities.

"There's certainly a link between the intervention and people coming into town," he said.

"This isn't the answer, the answer is to have communities look at how alcohol should be dealt with within their communities. If you can do that you shouldn't have so many people leave their communities."

He said the Government was ignoring expert evidence from the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody 25 years ago.

"...it made it absolutely clear this is not the right way to go this just puts people at risk and it can culminate in tragic circumstances," he said.

"This will just result in more people in jail."

The Larrakia Nation's Photo ID service, which helps Aboriginal people find their birth certificates and creates ID cards for a $30 fee, has also been scrapped.

Although it is a user-paid service, Larrakia Nation relies on Government funding for staff.

Ilana Eldgridge said last year Larrakia Nation created more than 5600 ID cards for Aboriginal people with no current form of identification.